


Something More Than Human

by Lokei



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-09
Updated: 2006-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:44:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew what bedtime stories she would tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something More Than Human

The shutter was loose, banging irritably against the clapboards, shattering the cocooning silence like a fretful child. Maria sighed and put her knitting aside, crossing the room to close the offending shutter decisively. She scowled at the latch, daring it to let go again and remind her for the fourth time in as many hours of just how alone she was in the evening gloom.

A reproachful snore from the fireside chair drew her glance inwards once more. So she was not truly alone, she amended, but an elderly mother sleeping through the after dinner hours was not quite company either. Her husband, of course, was somewhere between here and enemy cannonfire—she didn’t know where exactly, and wouldn’t have even if he had told her. She knew it had to be something important, to pull him away after so short a reprieve, and even in the usually unconscious town there was a certain expectancy. Surely Horry had been called back to his ship because he was a hero, she told herself, and heroes were needed by their country. But he would return safely, as he always did.

She looked at the little bundle of knitting left on the chair. Soon she would have someone else to tell these bedtime stories to, not just herself. She had them well-practiced, grown from the kernels of truth she had gleaned by keeping a sharp eye on the naval columns and a keen ear in the streets. He told her so little, it seemed scarcely subterfuge to try to understand him through the back door, by listening to all the things others said when he was not there.

She had heard the stories passed from sailor to sailor’s lass, the tales of a young midshipman, risen from his seasick hammock to lieutenant and then captain in seeming effortless leaps of brilliance and courage. Some said he had voluntarily climbed aboard a burning ship to save his own, others that he had jumped off a cliff and swum to safety to escape a burning fort. She did not know if such things were entirely true, but his scorched and saddened gloves were proof enough that there were many things he did not tell her, dangers he had escaped by slim margins.

She was eager to believe he was something more than human, willing to trust that there was something else looking after him when she could not, something big and powerful, something which he loved, and which therefore must love him back as much as Maria herself did.

Surely the sea must love a man like Horatio, must protect him and reward him for the trust he showed.

Running a finger over the yarn, Maria knew which story she would tell first, one she had nursed and cherished into the legend that sustained her in his absence. She had gained it off a sailor who had escorted her mother home from the local tavern once, and who had told a tale which erased any thought of shame for her mother which had previously burned her. The image which replaced it was that of a young man in an open boat, giving himself and his men to the whim of the sea as he tossed his compass overboard rather than be taken captive. Maria imagined that it was in that moment that the sea gifted him with that supernatural protection which had blessed him ever since.

Reconsidering, Maria opened the latch again and pushed open the shutters as the night air rushed in off the harbor. She gazed out and began to whisper the story as she had so many times before: half recitation, half incantation—a prayer as much as a promise.

“Once upon a time, there was a young sailor. He lived through every storm to find a safe port, and through every battle to find a warm home. Some called him lucky, but the ones who loved him knew it was his magic, his gift from the ocean. His name was Horatio.”


End file.
